Lesson 6. Live: running the show

In the previous lessons we built light — scenes and chases — that steps in time with the music. But building it is only half the job. The real thing starts when the house lights go down, the music plays and you are at the console running the show live. That is what SvetoMaster’s Live mode is for: a concert console. Let’s get to know it.

We will be watching the result for real, so it is a good idea to connect your fixtures. Open the project from the first lessons and click the Live tab at the top of the window.

Fig. 1 — Live mode: the concert console with scenes, faders and buttons

💡 Is Live compulsory? No. In Prog mode the light goes out to the fixtures live as well — you can run a simple show straight from there, firing scenes and chases with a click. Live is for when you want concert comforts: big buttons for a dark room, smooth transitions on one button, group faders, banks of scenes. For a small rig Prog is quite enough — start with whatever suits you, and move to Live when you want more control.

Do not be put off by all the buttons and faders — this is a full console and in time you will master the lot. But to get through a first performance a handful of controls is enough.

Step 1. Firing scenes — now with big buttons

The main thing you see in Live is your scenes and chases as big buttons. They are deliberately large: in a dark room you can hit them out of the corner of your eye.

📍 Where: the right/central part of Live — the “Scenes, Chases and Playlists” block. Next to it there is a “Large” toggle that makes the buttons bigger still.

Press the “Red” scene — the room floods red. Press “Blue” — you have switched over. Just like in the studio, except now it is your live instrument.
If the project has too many scenes and chases, the ones you need can be put into Favourites (right-click the tile in Prog mode) and they will then be shown as a separate list.

Step 2. Overall brightness

At the top, in the program header (and duplicated at the top left), is the overall brightness control (the Grand Master). This is your main knob: with it you dim or raise all the light at once in a second, whatever scene happens to be playing.

💡 Tip: keep the overall brightness in mind — it is the “volume” of your light. A quiet moment in the music: bring it gently down; the intro: bring it up.

Fig. 3 — The overall brightness control in the header

Step 3. Smooth transitions — the main secret of a good-looking show

Find the Fade block and choose, say, 2 seconds. Now switch between scenes and notice: the light does not snap over, it flows softly from one colour into another. That one small thing turns a set of scenes into a living, breathing show.

📍 Where: Live → the Fade block with the time buttons (Cut, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5… seconds).

🎧 For the DJ: on fast dance music use Cut or 0.5 s — the changes land on the beat. For slow numbers use 3–5 seconds so the light “breathes”.

Fig. 4 — Choosing the transition time (Fade)

Step 4. The crossfader: preparing the next moment in advance

Next to it is the crossfader: two scenes, A and B, with a big GO button between them. Choose one scene in A and another in B, press GO — and the program smoothly takes the light from the first to the second over exactly that Fade time.

Handy for preparing the next moment ahead of time and delivering it with one press, exactly when it is due.

Fig. 5 — The A/B crossfader with the GO button

Step 5. Blackout

The big button on the right of the header is Blackout. Or simply the Space key. Press it and all the light goes out instantly. Press again and it comes back exactly as it was.

It is both the emergency button and a powerful device: kill everything on a break in the music and bring it back on the hit.

Fig. 6 — The “Blackout” button in the header

Step 6. A chase in time with the music

Start our chase from the previous lesson — it begins running through the scenes. To make it follow the beat exactly, tap the tempo: press the TAP button in time with the music a few times (or just tap the T key). The program catches the tempo — and the light starts moving right on the beat.

💡 Tip: the metronome next to it blinks in time. Green — the beat is caught; yellow — the program is still settling in. Caught it wrong (twice as fast or twice as slow)? The ÷2 and ×2 buttons are right there.

Fig. 7 — The TAP button and the tempo (BPM) field — Fig. 7 — The TAP button, the tempo (BPM) field and the sound source picker

💡 So that the sound is read from the right place, choose a suitable source: “System”, for example, to capture the music from the player on your laptop. The choice is available right there under the TAP button and in the program menu: “Settings” → “General settings”.

Step 7. Submasters: faders for groups of light

The row of faders at the bottom is called the Submasters — it is like a mixing desk for light. Take one fader: press the three-dot button (⋮) on it and assign the “Pars” group.

Fig. 8 — Assigning a group to a submaster through the ⋮ menu

Now, as you raise that fader, you gently add brightness to the PARs only — on top of everything else that is playing. And the lightning-bolt button under the fader is the flash: hold it and they blink to full, release and it goes back.

🎧 For the DJ: land those flashes on the hits — a simple and striking device. The first faders can be flashed straight from the keyboard, with the 1–8 keys.

Fig. 9 — A group submaster and the flash button (the lightning bolt)

Step 8. Reset: a clean slate between songs

Over a performance you will get up to plenty: raise faders, add colour, fire flashes. To bring the console back to a clean state quickly, press and hold the “Reset” button for about a second. All the live overlays come off at once, while a running scene or chase keeps playing.

💡 Tip: a short press on “Reset” deliberately does nothing — that is the protection against an accidental click. It has to be a hold.

Fig. 10 — The “Reset” button (hold for ~1 second)

Let’s sum up

For a first live performance you already have everything you need:

the buttons you need for scenes and chases;
the overall brightness at hand;
a smooth Fade between scenes;
the crossfader with its GO button;
the life-saving Blackout (Space);
the tempo via TAP;
submasters with flashes;
“Reset” to tidy up.

And then the really interesting part begins: banks — sets of scenes for different parts of the show, ready-made movement effects, the “Quiet scene” mode for cue-driven theatre. But that is for the lessons to come.

If you are ready, move on to Lesson 7, Live for grown-ups: banks, overlays and special modes.